RAMALLAH, Occupied Palestinian Territories —
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas hosted
Saturday a US delegation led by Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern
Affairs Barbara Leaf, ahead of an expected visit of President Joe Biden.
اضافة اعلان
Abbas reiterated
his requests to remove the
Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) from the US
list of terrorist entities during the meeting, his office said.
The Palestinian
President also requested that the PLO’s office in Washington and the US
consulate for East Jerusalem be reopened, after both were closed under the
Trump administration, the Palestinian presidency said in a statement.
Leaf, who began a
three-day trip to the Palestinian territories and Israel on Saturday, met Abbas
“to discuss the US-Palestinian relationship, US assistance to Palestinians,
deepening ties and how Palestinians and Israelis alike deserve equal measures
of freedom, security, and prosperity,” the State Department said.
Biden has pledged
to reopen the consulate, closed under Donald Trump, whose administration
recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, infuriating the Palestinians who see
its eastern sector as their future capital.
Israel opposes
the Palestinian consulate in
Jerusalem, saying the US should open this
diplomatic mission in Ramallah, the seat of the Palestinian Authority in the
occupied West Bank.
Meanwhile, the US
has in recent days changed the title of its Palestinian Affairs Unit to Office
of Palestinian Affairs (OPA), without defining it a consulate.
The unit
“operates under the auspices of the US Embassy in Jerusalem, and reports on
substantive matters directly to the” State Department, an OPA spokesperson
said, noting the new structuring was “to strengthen our diplomatic reporting
and public diplomacy engagement”.
The move comes ahead of a
possible visit of Biden to the region. The US President saying he was
considering a trip to Saudi Arabia, Israel, and the Palestinian territories in
July.
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